Modernism in Literature: A Historical Overview
Modernism
In the late nineteenth century, a general crisis emerged as men lost confidence in progress and science’s ability to offer absolute truths. This crisis had a profound impact on art and culture, leading to the emergence of Modernism. This movement proclaimed a new and refreshing attitude towards life and manifested as a significant literary movement.
1. The Literary Modernism
Literary Modernism emerged in Latin America around 1880 as a response to the Spanish tradition and an assertion of American identity. Authors sought absolute beauty and formal perfection in their work. The rejection of daily life resulted in two distinct forms of Modernism:
- External Modernism: Characterized by escapism and the primacy of the sensual, exotic, and fantastic.
- Intimate Modernism: Characterized by gloomy introspection and pessimistic anguish.
1.1 Influences
Modernist writers drew inspiration from various sources, including two French poetic movements:
- Parnassianism: Focused on the expression of beauty and formal perfection.
- Symbolism: Aimed to suggest hidden realities through the use of symbols.
1.2 Characteristics of Modernism
Modernists, rejecting the prosaic, championed beauty in all its forms. They focused on recreating beautiful places and objects and presenting intense feelings and emotions. They defended aristocracy (symbolized by the swan) against vulgarity and sought escape from reality in both space and time. This escape led them to explore the past (classical world, medieval times, Renaissance, the eighteenth century, and Spanish-American history) and distant, exotic lands. The pursuit of beauty led to a renewed literary language characterized by careful and sophisticated use of language. They incorporated cultisms, neologisms, exotic words, and words chosen for their sound (accumulation of proparoxytones) and ability to evoke sensations (touch, smell, hearing, etc.). They sought musicality through rhythmic devices like anaphora, parallelism, and alliteration, and alluded to musical instruments and created plastic effects with the use of colors. Ornamental adjectives, suggestive images, varied symbols, and daring synesthesia were abundant. They revived classic verses (sonnets, silvas, serventesios) while modifying the type or number of verses and stanzas. Popular forms like couplets, seguidillas, and romances were also used, alongside free verse.
The preferred meters were eneasílabo, pentameter, dodecasyllabic, and, above all, the Alexandrine (its frequent use even led to it being called “modernist verse”).
2. Modernism in Spain
Modernism in Spain was more intimate and introspective, lacking the exuberance and exoticism of its Spanish American counterpart. Salvador Rueda was a precursor of the movement, and Manuel Machado was one of its most prominent figures. Juan Ramón Jiménez, in his early stages, exemplified this with poems like Arias Tristes and Soledades. This stage was marked by the influence of Bécquer, Symbolism, and Modernism, resulting in emotional and sentimental poetry expressed in a perfect formal structure. The themes explored included landscape, melancholy, love, and decline. Antonio Machado’s Soledades, a poem full of emotions and feelings, covered themes like time, loneliness, death, and God, using a symbolic language to depict the landscape. In prose, Ramón María del Valle-Inclán stood out with his Sonatas, which narrate the amorous adventures of the Marquis de Bradomín and represent the ultimate expression of the modernist author.
3. The Consolidation of Modernism: Rubén Darío
The Nicaraguan Rubén Darío was the leading figure of literary Modernism. His extensive travels allowed him to spread the movement throughout Europe. His work Azul… (1888) marked the first significant expression of Modernism. Strongly influenced by the French and featuring an abundance of exotic themes, it consisted of compositions in verse and prose, including short stories and poems that recreated a world of fairies, princesses, mythological creatures, palaces, and swans. All presented with striking adjectives and imagery. It celebrated indigenous culture and rejected Spanish influence, employing an elegant and sentimental tone and a language based on rhythm and musicality. This refined style was consolidated in Prosas Profanas (1896), which marked the definitive consecration of Modernism. It was notable for its metrical and verbal innovations. The poems in the book incorporated exotic escapism and aristocratic themes similar to those in Azul…, although social and Spanish issues were also present. However, the predominant theme was eroticism. In Cantos de Vida y Esperanza, there is a shift towards three main themes: aristocratic evasion of reality, social and political concerns, and personal anxieties. Darío adopted a more personal, intimate, and reflective style. From a stylistic perspective, in this work, Darío toned down the pursuit of external, ornate beauty, but did not abandon formal innovation.